Carpal anchored phalanges
of jointed rigidity
Wrapped in soft tissue
pink and moist with my warm blood
Grabbed hold cold, rough rock.
Full fists of iron and flint
Smack rock to rock — fire’s spark.
Black night’s no moon fright
will melt in flickers from twigs
Burned by stone smashing
For fleeting yellow heat leaps
to small mounded bits of brush.
I remember now!
Bend low snap, snap, blow gently.
Earth births Sun’s fire.
Desert sands, like parched lips, thirst,
for swelling clouds turning gray.
Wood shriveled to black
dehydrated carbon crust
can be crushed to dust.
What is this extension?
Four fingers and a mute thumb?
A hand, my white hand,
Once Africa’s purple black
That merged with Earth’s bones
To clap, slap, pound, pulverize.
Mountain, … hand, … a grand query.
How, Flame, were you seized
Encased in massive boulders
Fractured into rock?
Freed with a flick and a crack
I can no longer grasp you.
I have seen trees bleed
Atop our Sun’s progeny —
Oozing sap hissing.
As orange limbs crumble to ash
Fresh killed meat drips precious dew.
The noon day sun shines.
I hunt in hunger and sweat.
Drought hides sustenance.
I’m cooked; in the heat, I drop
Prostrate, limbs spread, without breath.
Who is this man — dead?
Years past he spat on pigment
and smeared caves with paint.
Where are our unrestrained tears,
An unleashed torrent of rain?
Spheres of water form
curtains of liquid beads
that flow into streams
Screaming towards the ocean floor.
Are we not pure fluid moved?
Born, raised, schooled, seek
Estuaries’ tidal pools
for ancestral home.
I have dreamed these precious scenes
and have called forth great fire.
I am much water
wrapped around angular bone
internally warmed,
But from where is my breath born
that forms these visions in time?
